Did I everyone, welcome to conversations. Today's guest has an amazing story. It's been an amazing journey, really born into a life of crime. I can't describe it in any other way. Born into a life of crime. His dad was a hardened professional criminal and was in and out of jail, and Peter Norris, who's my guest, was dragged around the country to various locations with his mum and dad first and his dad then into institutions and then into a foster home. But he emerged from that, and
we'll cover that story as we go. He's recounted the journey in a book called The Bank Robber's Boy. Peter Norris, good morning, how are you?
Yeah, good morning, Cornsey, I'm great, thank you, and yeah, really appreciate your having them on your show.
It's an amazing story. I mean, it's what intrigues me out the book. When you get to the epilogue, you're only twelve. That life you fit into those years zero to twelve, so jam pa, and then you cover the rest of your life where you've emerged from such a difficult upbringing to being successful as you are now. But we'll come to that. You rely on your brother, your brother Day's early memories for the first couple of chapters to tell us about your dad. So, yeah, tell us your early memory.
Yeah. I mean, as you just alluded to Cornsey, that first sort of twelve years of life. Even looking back now, I go, it feels like another lifetime because there was so much packed into that. Yeah, and a lot of it, you know, not necessarily positive experiences, some traumatic. But my first memory as a child, as a four year old, and I was living with people who I thought were my biological family, and we were the Robinson's, and I had a mom and a dad, and I had two siblings,
two brothers. And it's a really surreal memory that one night I had a blood nose. I used to get these blood noses as a kid all the time, which is not uncommon. And I bled all over my sheets and my pillowcase, and the person I thought was my father gave me this strapping across the back of the legs, which was a massive overreaction to an accident. And I laid there that night and the next morning and I had this powerful sense of I don't belong here. And
that's probably the best way I can explain it. Is that I looked at my surroundings. I looked at Mum and Dad and my siblings, and I went, why am I tall and thin with dark curly hair. Why are they short and round with red hair? So I had this revelation of sorts that this is not where I'm meant to be, and it was really strange. That was my earliest memory.
It's you're only four then, I mean that InTru you've got. You've got good memories of early good memories. You've got clear memories of those early years. So so we'll come to the we'll come to the Robinson's in due course. We'll tell us about your dad. I mean those those early years where your brother Dave recounts things that were happening around the household and the different names that you had to be known as. So you tell us about your dad.
Yeah, look, dad, Dad had a similarly traumatic childhood, you know, growing up in Grafton Jail and Tamworth Boys Home. And it was in one of these places that he met
some fairly well known criminals like George Freeman. And as you know, as my brother Dave tells it, George was a young eighteen year old when he first went into jail, and Dad was a bit more of a season criminal at that stage, so they took young George under their wing and got him a coveted job in the in the bakehouse, so he wasn't cleaning toilets and scrubbing showers and those sorts of things. So George kind of joined
that gang. But of course, you know, George went on to become a lot, a lot sort of more famous as a criminal, I suppose, and my dad who preferred to stay in the background, but yeah, Dad and his crew, and you know, they were bank robbers.
And did he ever did he talk about did you have a chance to talk about his upbringing? You mentioned a tough upbringing? Yeah, did you meet his Did you meet your grandparents on your dad's side, for instance.
I met my grandmother on dad's side, and there wasn't a lot of talk about family history those things. So it was really only probably when I was in that age of eleven to twelve where I started to really dive into some of that family history. And I'm sure will get to some of those stories. But yeah, I suppose the way that that early part of life and I came into the care of the family, like the Robinson's dad was a hardened criminal, and my mum lived
with us up until the age of eighteen. And again, you know, my brother recalls these memories really vividly that mum actually had enough and went off and found another boyfriend, Tim, who was a command an ex commando in the British Army, and he'd moved to Australia and Mum and him met and anyway, Dad sort of took a disliking to a couple of things that happened over there and went around with the tomahawk and smashed the door down and caved a bit of him his head in with the tomahawk,
and and yeah, next thing the family were back together. But yeah, it certainly wasn't a happy environment for mum, who, yeah, from that point formed a drug habit, and yeah, it was obviously planning her escape as well.
There's a moment in the book, sad moment in the book where your grandfather sets you down and says we won't be seeing your mother again. And it leaves me hanging right until the end, because I wondered what happened? Did she die? Did she commit suicide? Did you a young man and being told that you won't see your mother again. How do you deal with that?
Yeah, she told her kids, all of us, so there's four of us that she was going shopping for the day, and yeah, grabbed her bag as she normally would, and hopped on a bus and that was it. Cornsey, we haven't seen or heard from her since. There hasn't been a single She would only be in her seventies now, so you know, likely alive, hopefully still alive, and yeah, but just just disappeared off the face of the earth. Yeah, to this very day.
Well, I kept waiting for her to reappear in the book, to be quite honest, I kept waiting for you to track it down and real did you try to do that?
Tried to do that early in life. There was a few programs through the Salvation Army where you were able to locate missing family members, and we tried everything we could to find her. And look, I don't begrudge her for making that decision. It would have been a pretty tough environment for her. The only question that I would have for her is, even at this stage, is how you walk away from four children? You know, you've got kids,
I've got kids. We know how tough that would be to leave them and never communicate with them again for the rest of your life. So that would be a tough one, I imagine, And I'm sure you know she went through some hell with that decision herself.
So the Robinson's is not a pleasant experience for you, strapped for having a blood nose and bleeding all over your sheet. So what happens then? I mean of it, it's a journey from one place to the next. As you're reading through this book, it's hard to settle because you don't settle and your dad's there and then he's gone, and then he reappears magically. So what happened after Robinson's.
Yeah, after the blood nos incident, there was a little bit of time, a couple of weeks where you know, I even went to school. I was going to kindergarten. I went to my kindergarten teacher and my mood was a bit down. And she said to me one day, she said, oh, what's wrong, Peter. You're normally this happy child who's running around the playground. And I said to her,
I said, I'm looking for my real family. I wanted to get me And again it sounds really strange that a four year old was so certain that he didn't belong where he was. And I recall that day because she was really kind and she said to me something along the lines of, you know, if you're patient, the
things you wish for will come. And I looked turned around and I was, you know, fifty meters away from that conversation when I walked away, and she was still just watching me, and I'm sure she was thinking, what the hell is going on with that kid? And anyway, it was the weekend after that conversation, and I was running circles around the front yard. Was a very active child, and the person I thought my mother was cutting roses
off the rosebush. And the front gate squeaked open, and I turned around and there was this man with sort of thick muscular arms and he was making a vline straight to me, and he had this smile on his face that I'll never forget. And not a word needed to be exchanged. I knew, I just knew that that was where I belonged, and he put his arms out,
I jumped into them. And that was Dad who spent which I found out later spent eighteen months in the New South Wales court system legally getting his kids back together. So that was a really special moment.
He knew him straight away.
Obviously I didn't know the face. I hadn't didn't remember the face, but you know, there's just something in my gut that that's where I belong. I hopped, There was no hesitation. I hopped into his arms. He was crying. I was crying, and yeah, there was an exchange of conversation between him and the Robinsons and maybe a social worker, there was somebody else there, and I didn't hear any
of that. I was just caught him, you know, just staring at this man and just this feeling of content and happiness, and.
Just did he take your way straight away? He did?
Yeah, he walked me out. There was a car waiting out the front, and you know that that moment got even more special when we got to the car and there was two little girl's faces pressed up against the window and they were giggling and clapping and cheering, and as I would learn in the the sort of half an hour after that, they were my sisters who had already been collected and knew that they were getting their brother back.
And you never knew you had had a sister let alone too.
Never knew I had a sister let alone too. So it was again a strange experience for that journey in that car back to the house that Dad had set up for us to hear about what my family had been doing. And you know, one of my sisters was quite vocal, so she was telling me everybody's story, and you know, I got a half an hour wrap up of you know, how it came that I was back in this car with my real family. So it was, yeah, just a and still you know, one of the most beautiful memories.
I have, your older brother, Dave. He seemed to he seemed to be distant from the family from time to time. It was there a reason for that, Yeah.
He had he had a really strong relationship with my with my grandfather, which is my mother's father. So and if we take a step back, you know, when mum caught that bus, my grandfather took us to you know, as we said, took us to a church and handed us out to different families. That I went to the Robinsons and my sisters went elsewhere, which even in itself, was a strange thing to happen. And yeah, so Dave remained with grandfather and did so for y you know,
a fair chunk of his childhood. He felt safe and secure in that environment, so he stayed there.
Peter Norris is my guest. His book is called The Bank Robber's Boy. It's a what's the story of a young fellow who's affected by the the criminal aspect of his father. He delves into little bit of crime himself a bit later into the book, but has emerged successfully, tremendously successfully. Back after the break. If you just tuned into conversations, we're speaking with Peter Norris. Now, Peter is the son of a man who was once shown on
that television show Australias Most Wanted. We'll talk about that because that comes as a bit of a surprise to a young fellow watching TV and his father's face pops up. But if you just tuned in, Peter's four years of age. His mum and dad have split up. He's been fostered out, but his dad goes through the court system and finds him and reunites the family, or two of the sisters and Peter. But it doesn't seem to get any easier. Peter, you're four years old, you with your sister and your dad.
He set up a house, but you go from place to place, I mean tell us about the insecurity of all that.
Yeah, and that was a challenging times as a four year old child at this stage. You know, I had no idea that our family was any different than any other. I didn't I certainly didn't know that dad was a criminal. So when we were told in the middle of the night regularly, you've got ten minutes, grab one bag. You've got a backpack, whatever you can fit in. That is
all you get to take, you know. So I'd grab Tom the Turtle, my teddy bear, and a few you know, a few bits of clothing and we'd be out the door, and you know, no chance to say goodbye to any friends that you'd made at school. Yeah, we're just just out. And it was yeah, and all I've our belongings left in the place and this this you know from there, It's just a process that was repeated over and over, which was really unsettling and took a little bit, certainly a long while to get used to it.
If you ever do not for the fact you had to change your your name regularly, how did you handle that?
Yeah, we'd have this briefing from you know, from Dad if we started a new school all that. Okay, you know, don't forget that today your surname is Reynolds or you know. Yeah, I mean, you know, A funny part of the story is is that Norris is actually not my surname. It's not my birth name. My birth name is Pugh p u g h. And but my birth Gibbie says Norris because that's just the way Dad set it up at
the time. So I'm still running under a fake name necessarily as as my children, but we've never never changed it back.
If your birth certificate has got Norris on it, how did that happen? Was it was he operating with a fake name because you sign that as well.
Yeah, yeah, operating under a fake name. It was obviously regularly wanted by the by the police for various things. So it looks like just at the time, yeah, that was the name that we were using, and it's it's on my birth certificate, so it stays.
How did you find out your own name?
Well, I was for all well, when I had a connection to some of Dad's family. Yeah, after we kind of went our separate ways, and they were all pews. And then I've had to look up dad's records. There's an article actually in the Sydney Morning Harold where Dad escapes from Long Bay jail. This is before my birth. He knocked out one of the guards and put the prison uniform on and just strolled out the front gate.
But as the article goes, it's, you know, Clarence Donald Pugh escaped and he's and police are searching bush bush around the abound the prison to see if they can locate this escape prison. So yeah, there's all these things that go, yeah, that that's you know. My surname is not meant to be Norris, so it's.
Called the Bank Robbers. Boy. You don't talk much about the banks that he robbed in the book. Yeah what did? What did? What do you know about those crimes?
Yeah? I think the earliest memory I have of Dad actually being a criminal was one evening one afternoon. Actually Dad was having a little snooze on the couch. So my sisters and I went looking for Christmas presents. It was nearly Christmas time, and so as you do as a kid, we're searching through the d and we thought our dad's wardrobe is probably the spot where we'll find them.
So we pulled a chair out and climbed up on top and had a look, and there was some blankets and things that look like they're hiding something, so we pulled them out and anyway, we found three brown bags and they're all filled with cash, bundles of cash, and we've wrapped up with elastic bands. I don't know how much, but you know, there was bundles and bundles and bundles of cash and two handguns in one of the one
of the bags. So we quickly put them back and we made this little pack between the three of us that we wouldn't mention it again, and we certainly wouldn't be telling Dad that we knew about it. But it was about that time that we realized that life probably for us was not normal, and our family was a little bit different than anybody else. And then from that there was a few other moments. So Dad would always
so I was really, really really close to Dad. I'd sleep, you know, in his bed every single night, cuddled up. But almost every night, without fail, he'd think I was asleep and he'd slip out and he'd be gone for hours in the middle of the night and come back in the early hours of the morning, and there'd be new things in the house. There'd be new TVs, bikes for us, There'd be all these this new stuff, and then a week later it'd be gone again.
But as you're describing it, it seems more like a petty criminal and than a bank robber. Did you read did you research any of the bank jobs that he did?
Yeah, there's a few, and there's a few that I recall. And one there's a Petersham This a hospital, not a bank, but this is one big one, an armed robbery where and I remember going there with Dad and he was he got a job as a cleaner, and it was only for about two weeks, and I wondered why, But what he was doing was watching the watching the staff, and obviously the payroll system in that day was all done in cash. And then two weeks later he didn't
work there anymore. And then on the news I saw that two armed men had taken the ten thousand dollars payroll by a shotgun. And then we were off again moving. So, even at that age, and I think I would have been about six at that point, I started to put two and two together. Probably my main in terms of banks. It was probably really talking to Dad. He was he actually didn't get caught, and he got caught for one, but a lot of the bank the bank were robbery
crimes he didn't get caught for. But you know, there was one later on in life, when we were traveling across the wa which will get to that. He told me about that, just a bank in Sydney where Dad's job was to subdue this one guard who was meant to be pretty tough and was going to be the main problem. And as Dad tells me, he said, you know, I went in and I put a shotgun in his face and told him to get down or I was going to blow his head off. And he didn't move.
He just stood there looking at me. And then Dad said, okay, well, the intel's right. He is going to be a problem. So I said it again. Get on your bloody knees, are I'm going to blow your head off? And again he didn't move, And then Dad said, and then I noticed something. His eyes just glazed over and he started to piss himself. And I realized then that he'd gone into this catatonic state of shock, and he wasn't, in fact all that tough. He was scared, just like everybody else.
Can you excuse that behavior though, where you're relating it so matter of factly.
No, I can't. It looks I'm relating it as he told me. But what I will say is on hearing that that there was that moment and there was a few others where that was really an indication to me that I didn't want to be my father. I was certainly not proud. And he had a little chuckle as he told me that, thinking, you know, he wasn't so tough after all, Pete, and on a little little hit
on the shoulder like he was proud of it. And I actually felt shame and certainly some dread and sorrow for the poor man who had to experience that.
You're just one of those that are a romantic air about the you know, the criminal bank robbin, like the Butch Cassidy Sundown's kid. Yeah, is there something remotely romantic about that?
Look? I don't find anything too romantic about the crimes because I've seen on too many Asians the impact it has on the victims, you know, And I think another one that sticks in my mind was you know we were and it's not a you know, there's no weapons involved. But we were driving to the races one day in a taxi and Dad was a bit of a punter. When he'd stolen enough money that he could punt. We'd
be off to the races every weekend. And he had this hot tip and he paid the taxi driver ten bucks to get there as fast as he could, and one of my sisters she vomited all over the back seat. We just put up at the races and it was only a couple of minutes to Dad's hot tip was about to jump, so he had to get the bed on, and the taxi drivers ranging and raving and wouldn't let
us go. So Dad asked us kids get out of the back seat, walked around to the taxi driver's side, knocked him out with one punch, and this poor man's head was sitting on the horn as you'd seen a movie. There's just that head on the steering wheel. And Dad grabbed our hands and all right, off we go, you know, just just nonchalant, no impact on him. And I looked back at that incident and again that was one of those moments where I just felt complete sorrow, and I
didn't stop thinking about that for days. The poor man with his head on the steering wheel. So there were these incidents that were lining up that were really for me. They were just kept telling me that I wanted to be something other than what my father was.
Peter Norris is my guest. Book is called The bank Robber's Boy. It's really interesting reading, to be quite honest. A bit more about that when we get back back shortly. Welcome back to conversations now if you've just tuned in, it's a fascinating discussion with a gentleman called Peter Norris. Now,
Peter's done really well in life. He manages a big facility of a corower, but his early days were beset by his association with his dad and love of his dad, who was a hardened criminal in and out of his life, in and out of jail. You're talking about the dad racing to the to the race course to get a bet on. You seem to spend a lot of time as kids at race courses. Was he was he a professional gambler or was he? Was he a good punter or not?
I think he considered himself a good punter, but I can tell you now that there are more times at the at the end of the races that he was in a bad mood than in a good mood. And we knew, we knew if he had a bad night, it was yeah, there weren't many words spoken. But on the other side, if he had a good night, we were off and we were getting ice cream, and life
was pretty good for everybody. So yeah, I would say, yeah, not a particularly good punter, despite him being there every single weekend, almost you.
Showed some entrepreneurial and now said, those races, as you account in the book, being able to you know, guy's beer and sell it on for whatever, twenty cents a glass, and pinching buckets of ice cream to sell them. Surely you got it. Surely you got caught doing that.
Yeah, look I did. And I think I suppose this goes to the fact that you do become a bit of a productive environment. You know. So at that age, I was still only about eight, between eight and nine, and you know, all I'd seen was Dad steal and scheme and find ways to make money. And when when we go to the races, it would be, you know, race just before race one, and Dad would always say see you later. We'll meet back here after the last race. So we had hours and hours and hours to myself
to entertain myself. And yeah, so I come up with some schemes to make some money myself, just you know,
I thought that would make Dad pretty proud. So one particular one was as the most of the men would would race to the track, race to the track to watch the race, I'd have that sort of five minute jingle that would let you know that the race was coming, and they'd all race off and they'd leave their beers at the bar back in those days, so I would at that point go and collect all the half beers, all the dregs, and put them all into one plastic
cup so and then resell them. As the guys come up, I'd find a different space and sell them for twenty cents each. And quite often the men obviously knew what was going on, but they'd have a chuckle and throw me fifty cents or a dollar note and say adio, goot on your kid, and yeah, and I would get caught, and you know, someone, some official from the track would
come along and boot me along. But being a kid, it was never in any real trouble, So I'd just set the same thing up somewhere else and that process just repeated. So but I'd give Dad that money at the end of the night, and you know, in the hope that that would help us as a family when things weren't good. We were we were going to Smith's family in Salvation Army for clothes and food and things. So I suppose I felt like I was I was helping us out.
But you ended up in Red Cross homes and yeah, other facilities like you're talking about. You don't go into much detail about your time at Baltara, and you've settled a case against the Yeah, I'm going to using the word atrocity, settle a case against the way you were treated against that institution because of the way you were treated there. Can you tell us about that?
Yeah, we did. We as a family, we made our way to Shepherd and actually Dad was on the run again, and at this stage I was I was eleven years old and we were staying in a Salvation Army restpirit center and Dad got himself into a into a fistfight actually, and with this really large man and I just remember him.
He's been this really large overweight man with tattoos all over his body and his face in his neck, and Dad wasn't doing particularly well in this fight, and this large man had him in a had his hands around Dad's throat and sort of looked across at us and said, do you want your father to die today? It was a pretty horrible experience as a kid. You know, we clearly someone tells you that, you think that's what's what's going to happen. Anyway, there was an old an old
man who never spoke to anybody. He was in his seventies and sat on this little stool and chained smoked mental cigarettes and and from nowhere he picked up this stool that he sat on and he smashed it across the back of this this big this big man's head. Anyway, as he recovered from being unconscious, this man got up and he looked across all of us and he said, I'm coming to get all of you tonight, and I'm going to murder the whole family. And so yeah, and
strange that have circumstances. That night, we're all kind of huddled up in one room and Dad told us everything
was going to be okay. And eventually drifted off to sleep, and two we heard sort of a lard bang down stare and their front door was being kicked in, And of course, as a child, I thought this man was coming to deliver his promise, but as it turned out, it was a crew of detectives who, yeah, pretty much by the time I realized what was happening, Dad was pinned on the ground and as he promised through all of his all of our time together, he was you know,
just looked at me and said, I love you, Pete, and I'll be back to get you as soon as I can. And from that point, you know, Dad was sent to jail, and yeah, my sister Kelly and I were both made wards of the state for those that, yeah, that don't know, So the Victorian government became our legal guardian. And I know a lot of people wins about government decisions these days, but I can tell you that they don't do a good job being your parent either. So
it wasn't a great experience. The first decision they made on my behalf and my sister Kelly's behalf was as an abandoned child, they couldn't find anywhere anywhere for us to live, so they made the decision for me to go to Baltara, which is a youth detention center with children up to the age of sixteen who had committed most of who had committed criminal acts. So you know, a kids jail, which is I'm told I was told last year at my hearing that that's just the way
things were done. I suppose My response to that is, when was it ever okay to put an abandoned child into a prison?
What happened there?
Yeah, look, it was a horrible four months, Graham, And I suppose it's come out recently that you know, some of the crimes in there of a violence and of a sexual nature, well, all things that happened one particular night. And as people, as kids do and as adults do, I suppose, when they spend time in those institutions, you become really angry. And I had no communication from anybody. I wasn't told where Dad was, I wasn't told where
my sisters were. I wasn't told how long I'd be in there for, so as far as I was concerned, that could have been forever. So I laid in bed one night in a room of three small beds with two other occupants, and I started crying. I was an eleven year old who had just had enough, and one of the guards who I was aware of, sort of walked in. He had this big sort of red handlebar mustache and this big belly that hung over his pants,
and I knew, is he come in the room? I stopped crying and I just went, God, I hope he's not here for me. Unfortunately he was. He skull dragged me out of that room, down the hallway and took me into the showers, and yeah, and to be honest, just beat the shit out of me until I pissed myself as an eleven year old, and and drabbed me back to the bed, really just for the for the crime of crying and annoying him that night. Look, and that's probably not the worst that happened in there, but
that's one story that they had to face at a hearing. Yeah, in twenty twenty four, so only last year.
So you were successful in suing the government, I guess. Yeah, how traumatic was that to go through it again?
It was? Yeah, it was a deeply traumatic experience. But I think the probably the most traumatic part about that process, Cornsey, was I was offered the opportunity to read an opening statement at that hearing, and there was the state representatives there, their legal team, and their insurers present, and I tabled my opening statement, which I had spent weeks putting together, put my heart and soul into, because there were a few things that I needed to say, and I wasn't
blaming anyone present, but my statement was asking them to evolve beyond their predecessors and do the right thing, certainly by myself and others like me. They came back into the room where I was waiting and handed me back my statement and advised me that they wouldn't permit me to read that it was too hard for them to hear and cited a workhoalth safety reason for their staff. We're needing protect our team, so we're not going to
allow you to read that statement. And it was right at that time that I knew that they're not here to resolve that they don't care if you can't hear that statement. You're really not here, yeah, to help you, just trying to make this a financial decision and hope that I go away.
Peter Norris is my guest in and out of institutions, in and out of relationship with his dad. Does find a loving foster family, and I was able to make a success of his life after that. Back shortly, my guest on conversations is Peter Norris. Peter's written a book called The bank Robber's Boy, son of a bank robber, like a hardened criminal in his three siblings, moved from institution to institution. Has a happy ending because Peter does
make a success of his life. I don't know whether we're going to have enough time to get through that completely. You do find a loving foster family in the Dull Arts. So can you give us a brief overview of your time there?
Yeah, yeah, I can, Cornsey, Yeah, what had happened. Dad had been apprehended again. He'd sort of gone to jail and he was extra I did to w way to face some charges back there, and I was given a few weeks to live with my sister actually, and in that time I started my own crime spree, breaking into houses and faced court and was told by a judge at that time that I was possibly not possibly, I was at the worst thirteen year old criminal that he'd seen, and I had some choices on my own to make
for the rest of my life. And it was really a department or social justice decision that I was sent there to a family which are the Dullards, and it was meant to be for three weeks, and they said, you're out of control. Go and have three weeks with a foster family and see if you can pull yourself together in that three weeks. I stole their car, I did all sorts of things to test them out. Yeah,
but the beautiful family they are. At the end of that three weeks, Yeah, they sat me down and said, Peter, would you like to stay? We can see, we can see there's a good person in there somewhere, and we'd love you to go to school and start playing sport and yeah, just starting to become a normal child with a routine. And yeah, I took them up on that offer. And yeah, because my life certainly wouldn't be the same without them.
Just quickly, your dad does come back into your life briefly, but only briefly. Tell us what happened to him in the end.
Yeah, I had access over to my sister's house every second weekend, and Dad as he done, you know, throughout every year prior to that, whenever he was incarcerated he escaped and come back to find me and kept his promise. And on one of those visits, he was hiding out and i'd been to see him, and he sat me down, and as we've done every other time, he said, radio, Pete, grab your stuff, we're off again. I'm going to have to get out of Shepherd. And it's a bit hot
here for me with family around. And he sat there and looked at me, and I didn't answer him, and I think he knew straight away. And I was crying, and again he was crying, so not unlike when I was four years old, but this one was very different. I looked at him and I said, Dad, I can't. I want a better life for myself. And I think the important thing here for people listening is as much as I wanted to I loved Dad more than anything, there was something in life that I wanted more, and
that was to not become him. And I had to make that decision at that time, otherwise inevitably I would have just become my father.
He died so young. How are you told? And how did you know? Yeah?
Look, after that decision where I told Dad I wasn't going with him again, he picked his stuff up, really didn't say another word, walked back out the door. That was a last time that I saw him. He was captured again. He was great at escaping, but he wasn't great at staying staying free. He was always recaptured, returned to Freeman or prison. And yeah, unbeknownst to me even that that last visit I had, he was Yeah, he
had had early onset Alzheimer's and was quite sick. And yeah, so he died in prison as in his fifties, fifty six, which was terribly sad. At the time, I'd received a phone call from Community Services, I was still a state board and was advised that that Dad had passed away. So, yeah, pretty tough time as a as a teenager. After everything we've been through.
You have reunited with you with your siblings, haven't you, even though you've gone separate way?
Is it? Ye?
Just briefly us that before we rush through your closet school experiences.
Yes, I have. Yeah, Look, we're not a particularly close family, Cornsey. I think all of those life experience we all went our separate ways. My brother David has followed Dad's footsteps. He's spent a lot of time in jail and robbing armor guard vans and doing all sorts of things. My sister Kelly, who was also incarcerated in a girl So she's facing her hearing this year actually, and I will
be by her side. Some of the horrific things that happened to me and nothing compared to what happened to her, the poor thing. So she's really just a gypsy floating around wa.
So when you say hearing, she's suing the state.
Yeah, yeah, and she just hasn't recovered like I have. The poor things. So yeah, she's two years older than me and she's just hasn't settled in life at all. And yeah, unfortunately.
So yeah, and your other sister who was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident when she was young, how did life turn out for her?
Look? She Yeah, she married a really good man and her life as has been really settled. And yeah, she's quite quite successful in her own right, just with her and her children. So yep, she's living in Queensland. But they're also very supportive of the book and the story is you.
Know, Okay, did they have to read it first?
No, I've got them to give to read parts of it and give me their parts of the story just to make sure I had all the all the facts right. But they've read it now and they're you know, they're really proud of the story.
And yeah, so tell me how after. I mean, obviously it's dull. The influence of the Dullah the Foster family completely your education. You went on to tertiary education. You're well qualified. Not only that you you do bodybuilding, you do weightlifting, and give us a brief overview of that. How and why?
Yeah, I think what I the experiences I had with dad up until the age of thirteen, Krnsey taught me two things. One was I didn't want to be him, as I said, and I couldn't have any stronger feeling than that at that age, which is quite remarkable given how much I loved and respected and admired him. I didn't admire what he did, but he was a great dad. He was protective and loving. But I just knew that
I didn't want to be him. So that was motivation in certainly, you know, to move in the other direction. But the other thing he taught me was that if you're going to do something, don't do it half asked. You just put everything into it, and there's sort of people I think they use the words hyper focused or whatever it is these days, and people look at me and they just say, you know, I said I'm going to I'm just going to go and do some bodybuilding, and you know I did it. In twenty twenty three,
Eagan placed second in a few categories. And oh, that's great, you know, well done. I went. Well, it's not great because I have to go back again now. So I was there again in May twenty four and won six gold medals. I've just got that drive just to want to be really good at whatever I put my mind to.
And yeah, you know, and that's that's certainly some of the dull Ard influence on me as well, just teaching me to be a better person and to and to giving life everything you've got, despite you know that that some of those childhood experience is a good show. I don't believe there is any excuse not to be a good person.
And your professional qualifications tell us about those.
Yeah, you know, I qualified from university just with a Tourism and hospitality degree. And there I've like I like I suppose I've done all through life, is I've just put everything into every job that I've had, I've put my head down and I've been a good person and a good leader. And yeah, so now I'm CEO of a multiman dollar hospitality organization with one hundred staff, and I'm a foster care and myself and look after little children on weekends when I can, and probably not unlike myself.
I find a bedtime story and a cuddle and a safe roof over their head, you know, is often all they need. And a wife and kids, yeah, separated, But I've got two girls thirteen and nineteen, and I'm a football coach, so Ozzie RULs football coach from my under fourteen girls team with you might know Cornsy is it's challenging. I can't talk to girls as like you would with the under fourteen year old boys, so I have to be a little bit calmer and speak to them a
little bit differently. But I'd love that role too.
It's a great story, Peter, congratulations to the way you've emerged from it. I mean, it's such a difficult childhood. It's a real credit to yourself that you've been able to get to where you are at the current time. So a great yarn. As I said, you're only twelve when I got to the epilogue, so there's probably another book in there somewhere.
There's definitely some more stories in there.
All the best, mate, Thanks you, Thank you.
So much for your time, really appreciate it.
The book is called The Bank Robber's Boy Peter Norris. It's the Big Sky publication. Thank you so much for time